Stephen King's Carrie

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." ~ Lao-tzu

Here we are. The first in a long line of Stephen King book reviews to come! I have to say, Carrie was a good start to this whole experiment. It read really quickly and I can see a lot of King tropes right from the outset of his work. The first being the trope of the mentally powered main character. I know that we have many more of those in store for us as we move through these books, and it's interesting that Carrie seems to have pretty much all the mental powers. She's mostly thought of as a telekinetic, but in the book, she also seems to display some telepathy, pyrokinesis, and psychometry. Another common King-trope that I love starts here in this book as well: king interrupting the flow of thoughts with parentheses that interject some other perspective. This convention is so effective for demonstrating those fleeting thoughts that jump into our heads. It's a trait of his writing that I've always found very impactful and that just screams of King. Lastly, though not revered so much in this reviewers eyes, are the concept of the greaser villains. This same cliche comes up time and again, but I just can't think of the idea of a greaser as being all that threatening. Blame it on Westside Story and Grease. Fun thought: John Travolta, who set my expectations for what a greaser was also played the first of Stephen King's greaser villains, Billy Nolan in the Bryan Depalma film based on this book. 

Interestingly, Carrie is not exactly a horror book per se, though it has its moments. Carrie reads more like a teen drama, almost a romance for the most part. It is interesting to see though how King used an epistolary structure with this book. That's a style I most associate with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Especially considering that King's next work, 'Salem's Lot, was Stephen King's attempt to tell the story if Dracula coming to America in, what was then, modern times. Even so, the horrific elements really only seem to come once Carrie has her breakdown at the prom. The rest of the book tends to focus on the development of the various relationships through the text and the development of Carrie's powers. There is one other element that really sticks out to me here. There is a lot of detail that is paid to describe Billy Nolan's car throughout the book, and during her rampage, Carrie wrecks the car with Christine Hargensen in it. I'm wondering if this might be the origin for Christine when I get there. Or at least, if this isn't where that idea started for King. 

Overall, the book was a great read and an awesome starting point for getting into Stephen King.  Now on to 'Salem's Lot.